Regulation, Transparency and Scrutiny Key to Countering China’s Foreign Media Campaigns: Report

Policymakers in democratic nations should tighten broadcasting regulations, while increasing transparency and subjecting Chinese entities to greater scrutiny to counter the negative impact of Beijing’s foreign media influence campaigns, a media watchdog said in a report Wednesday. Since 2017, leaders from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have accelerated a decade-long expansion in the regime’s ability to shape narratives about China around the world, Washington-based Freedom House said in its report “Beijing’s Global Megaphone,” with the use of what it called “new and more brazen tactics” by Chinese diplomats, state-owned news outlets, and CCP proxies.

In a press release accompanying the report, Freedom House senior research analyst Sarah Cook said that Chinese state media content now reaches hundreds of millions of television viewers, radio listeners, and social media users abroad, “in many cases without transparency as to its origins.” At the same time, she said, journalists, news consumers, and advertisers around the world are increasingly being subjected to intimidation or censorship of political content that the CCP does not want them to engage with.

“Beijing’s media influence not only distorts the information environment in the affected settings, it also undermines international norms and fundamental features of democratic governance, including transparency, the rule of law, and fair competition,” Cook said.

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